Too Much Fun In the Library
In Breakthroughs: Classroom Discoveries About Teaching, Peter Trenouth, a high school English teacher writes about an activity he used with his students to strengthen their descriptive writing. He had found that his students’ writing assignments were often “mired in hollow thought or stilted prose”. Even “creative” assignments would come back “weak, either mechanistic or formless.” He discovered that getting his students to write descriptive papers often solved this problem. However, I appreciate how he asks why students should learn to write more descriptively, other than saying its to meet state standards or testing requirements. He developed an answer: descriptive writing should be “anchored in experiences” if they are to have meaning. Meaning does not stand by itself and when we experience the sights, sounds, textures, and odors of life, and we describe them with language, we give meaning to life.
So, after giving his students plenty of models and in class exercises, he had his students take a field trip within the school building, making lists of anything and everything that came to mind as they walked around. I especially liked how he had them make lists without evaluating what came to mind. Later, he had his students write descriptively of what they saw and found that each one placed significance on different things. However, what made their writing powerful was that they owned what was significant to them and conveyed it through their writing.
I thought I’d try this activity, sitting here in the Undergraduate Library. I’m sitting by the window, looking out into the inner courtyard, where there is a a tall tree within a round plant nursery.
Wind blowing the leaves gently
Birds flying overhead
Chairs are all neatly pushed into the tables.
Everything seems to be in the right place; nothing is out of place.
Water stains on the ceiling
3 copy machines from where I’m sitting
Colors are neutral: navy blue and gray chairs, ivory white tables, black computer screens, brown couches, silver window panes, sheer brown blinds
See-through meeting rooms with flat-screen TVs placed on the walls
Spare, minimalistic, plain, and functional.
Dim lights mingled with the sun shining in from the courtyard windows.
This is making me feel really peaceful right now.
Quiet thinking, reflecting.
It’s quiet, but busy in the intellectual realm.
The external order brings internal order.
This is why people come to libraries to study or get work done.
Later, Peter had his students develop these details into sentences. So, here goes my attempt:
I see why people come to the library to study. In front of me, there are rows of neatly arranged blue and gray chairs, pushed into the functional ivory tables. Everything in this part of the library is quietly ordered, maintaining the simplicity and serenity of the atmosphere. Nothing is out of place, not even the colors. There is no clutter and everything seems to have been placed here for a purpose, after careful deliberation and thought, including three copy machines within 10 feet of each other. The quietness of the library silences outside noises so that I can concentrate on my thoughts and organise and make sense out of them.